Book train in advance?

Nicolette, Especially at this time of year, I'd recommend just buying your tickets in Italy, either from the staffed ticket windows or automated Kiosks. You may be able to buy rail tickets from Venice to Florence at the Oltrex Travel Agency. They used to be at Riva degli Schiavoini 4192, but it's been a few years since I was there. That will save a trip to the station in Venice. Note that your destination station will be Firenze SMN. When you arrive in Florence, buy your tickets for the trip to Rome (since you'll be at the station anyway). Note that your destination station will be Roma Termini. One point to note is that you'll likely be travelling on EuroStar Italia / Alta Velocita trains from Venice to Florence and Florence to Rome, so reservations are compulsory and these will be included in the cost of the tickets. You'll be assigned specific Car No. (Carozza) and Seat No. (Posti) seating. With reserved seating, it's usually not necessary to validate tickets in the "yellow box" prior to boarding (although I often do it anyway). If you're travelling on slower Regionale trains, it's ESSENTIAL to validate tickets or you may be fined ON THE SPOT (and it won't be cheap). As this is your first trip abroad, I'm assuming you've researched your travel and sightseeing activities using Guidebooks? I often pack along a copy of the Italy Guidebook, as it's good for reference during trips. Happy travels!

Wow, very helpful. Thank you! Yes, I most definitely have a guide book I am bringing:)

We leave on our first trip to Italy on Thursday. I debated about booking ahead of time or not. We decided to book ahead because the prices were good, mini fares, and saved about 150euros. It forces us to leave at a particular time but we felt the savings were worth it

What website did you use to book your train?

The trenitalia site. and I used Ron in Rome to navigate the booking. I would check the trains you think you want to take and see if they still have mini fares left. If we had not gotten the mini fares we probably would have bought the tickets for the next available at the train station.

A reason to book in advance - there's going to be a rail strike on the day you want to travel (read Ron in Rome's post of 3/10/2009, "Strikes in Italy" - it explains how to book a strike-proof train.) And a couple things about the mini - be very, very careful when you use the Trentalia website. If you make a mistake and need to cancel a purchase, they give you only half your money back, no exceptions. It also took us several tries of several days to get tickets for all our trips due to the bugginess of the site. Finally, the mini cannot be changed, even at a station, if your travel plans change. We got done sightseeing in Florence early, but were not allowed to take an earlier train back to Rome.

The MINI discount can save you a lot of money. We just returned from a trip through Venice, Florence, and Rome. We purchased the Trenitalia MINI discount tickets online about 6-8 weeks in advance for the Venice-Florence route. The total cost for three people in 2nd class on an AV train, €66. The Base ticket price for one ticket is €43. So we saved almost 50% by booking in advance. When booking the MINI tickets we treat them like non-refundable airline tickets. As David says, changes are impossible: We once tried to change seats with a pre-purchased Mini ticket and they even said no to that request! So you have to be sure you will be traveling that date, and at that time. Far less flexibility, but far more savings. Conversely, when we were sitting at the Venice train station waiting to board our AV train to Florence, we did purchase our "open-seating" tickets for the Florence-Siena segment of our journey. Those tickets were only €6.40 per person. Because these were "open-seating" Regionale train tickets, we verified the departure times to Siena. On our day of departure from Florence we leisurely worked our way towards the station, knowing that if we missed our primary train, we could just jump on the next... as we knew when each was leaving. It's a good idea to shape your time/experiences around your tickets! For more help on using the Trenitalia website and the "paperless" ticket options, you might read these two posts: Booking on the Trenitalia Website and Going "Ticketless" and Using PNR Codes on Trenitalia.

We were lucky and were able to still get mini fares 2 weeks out. Thank you Ron for your site it was a great help while booking my tickets. As stated above I was very careful booking the tickets and we had decided to treat them like a plane ticket and give ourself plenty of time to catch the train we booked. It is nice to have the tickets already and not worry about the cost or working the machines or losing the tickets because we are going ticketless.

The Oltrax Travel Agency was in Venice at the above posted location when I was last there in July 2009 and we used them to purchase tkts. This was before you could purchase online through Trenitalia. They were very helpful here and conveniently located to our apt.
Just returned Mon. from Rome. We did a weekend trip to Florence, leaving Rome early Fri. afternoon and returning Sun. evening. My niece (who is studying there for semester) went to travel agency near the Pantheon and purchased our train tkts several days in advance and got some kind of a discount for the three of us. We paid 77 Euros each roundtrip on EuroStar, 2nd class. Maybe we could have gotten better price purchasing online but oh well....

We just got back. My very tech-savvy daughter tried to buy us tickets on-line while in Rome (site was down) and then at self-serve machines at Rome Termini. (most were also down) We ended up in line for agent, who was very efficient at booking next 2 legs of our trip for us, and who confirmed that neither the website nor machines were currently working. When in Venice, we went to agent at the station and bought the next 2 legs of trips...all reserved seats. Very easy. Many people who post here have better luck w self serve machines or website than we did, but I recommend you make sure you have enough wiggle room if you go that route, so you don't get stuck without tickets when you want them.
People with us in the LONG line for agent at Rome Termini were so upset...train departures were coming up fast and they couldn't make machines work to get their tickets. Have also heard that travel agencies are a good bet. The stations were convenient for us, so we went to agents there.

We just returned from 2 weeks in Italy. We booked all of our train reservations online ahead of time via trenitalia, but discovered even with reservations, you still have to stand in line at the station to pick up the tickets - and you pay significantly more for booking online. I think it's worth it in high season, but would not recommend booking ahead this time of year. You should be able to get tickets anywhere you want to go and you will save quite a bit. Just plan on arriving at the station an hour ahead because the lines can be long at certain times and days. Have fun! The train is a great experience.
Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie, I'm not sure by what method you purchased your online tickets through Trenitalia but there are NO additional fees for an online purchase using the ticketless option. In addition, with an email containing your PNR number, you don't have to wait in line for tickets - you don't even need tickets! You just show the PNR number to the conductor. Many of my Italian friends just hold up their SmartPhone with the PNR number on the email when the conductor comes around. Thus, using the online option, you can purchase discounted MINI promotional tickets in advance, saving you money... and then use the PNR to avoid any lines - at either the Trenitalia counters or the kiosks. For more info on the PNR and going ticketless to avoid lines, this article might help: Going "Ticketless" and Using PNR Codes on Trenitalia One advantage of booking ahead during peak season is to guarantee a seat on a holiday weekend – especially a 2nd class seat if that's your option, as sometimes these do sell out. So you definitely would want to utilize this advance-option especially during the peak season if you don't mind being locked into a specific date, time, and train. Granted, the PNR and ticketless options work on all trains except the Regionale trains (where you're limited to a 7-day in advance online purchase option). Because you don't have to wait in line, there is no need to arrive at a train station one hour in advance. We usually arrive about 10 minutes in advance but then we do train a lot in Italy and know our departure stations and the systems fairly well. If you already have your tickets, I'd suggest perhaps 15-30 minutes in advance depending on your familiarity with the train station and your knowledge of Riding Trains in Italy.

Ron, you've educated me . . . we were told we needed to exchange our electronic tickets for actual tickets, which created a great deal of confusion and additional time at the station for us. Wish we'd known! Regarding the price - it seemed when we looked on the board at the prices that it was much higher when we purchased online - but we may have forgotten to take the conversion from $$ to Euros into account. At any rate, the train was a wonderful experience. We purchased first class but I'm not sure we'd do so again - the car was filled with Americans! Maybe next time we'd book the regular fare (depending on the time of year.) Thanks for the info, Ron . . . travel is always a learning experience, no matter where you go or how you get there.
Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie, we made enough mistakes our first few trips overseas to fill a book! My wife and I have now lived in Europe a combined 20 years and we've probably traveled by train in 25+ foreign countries. (We do not own a car...) Experience is certainly a great teacher and internet travel boards, like this one, are a tremendous resource. Fortunately, for train travelers in Italy, Trenitalia is modernizing its systems - albeit slowly. Buying in advance helps avoid the in-station lines and can save you some money.